Watts then asked defendant about the suspected drug house, and defendant
said that he did not know if it was a drug house. When Watts asked if there were any
drugs in the pickup, defendant replied, "There better not be."

Watts then asked defendant for consent to search the pickup, and defendant
agreed. Defendant refused, however, to consent to a search of his person. Throughout
his interaction with Watts, defendant was "completely cooperative." While searching the
pickup, Watts found a purse containing a syringe holding brownish liquid and a paper
bearing the name of a police officer whom the passenger, Sanchez, knew. Sanchez told
Watts that the purse belonged to someone else but that she was using it and that the
syringe was not hers. Watts then arrested Sanchez and took her to his patrol car.

Sanchez then told Watts that the syringe contained heroin, that the heroin
was defendant's, and that she was "just holding onto it for him." Sanchez also told Watts
that defendant "had a gun on him right now."

"I find as fact that Officer Watts was concerned about his safety and
the safety of the other people present, the other, I think two officers, the
two women, and Mr. Aman. And I conclude that that is a reasonable
concern based on articulable facts. And the facts we have are the presence
of these people at what the officer believes or knows to be a drug house.
Has now found that one of the people in the car has what she acknowledges
as a syringe of heroin in the purse she's using. And she--when she says she
has it, it's something she shouldn't have and tells him that she's--that it's
heroin, she's made all of the admissions necessary to convict her of a
felony, possession of controlled substance.

"* * * * *

"And so at that point he is arresting one of the people from the car.
He doesn't know at that point, there's nothing to indicate he knows what the
connection is among these people. For all he knows Ms. Sanchez could
have had a very close relationship to Mr. Aman. Evidently that is not the
case, at least from the evidence from Mr. Aman, but the officer had no way
of knowing that. And it's obvious that Ms. Sanchez is going to be arrested,
taken into custody. And I would think an officer in those circumstances
would have a considerable concern that the male companion of that person,
or a male companion, there is three of them, two women and a man, may
react violently with that weapon. So it seems to me that the reasonable
course for a police officer in that situation is to get control of the weapon."

Following a stipulated facts trial, defendant was convicted.

On appeal, defendant's sole argument is that the warrantless search that
yielded the pistol was not a valid officer safety measure under the principles announced
and applied in State v. Bates, 304 Or 519, 747 P2d 991 (1987), and subsequent cases.
Defendant contends that the totality of the circumstances here did not support "a
reasonable suspicion, based upon specific and articulable facts, that the citizen might
pose an immediate threat of serious physical injury to the officer or to others then
present." Id. at 524. Defendant asserts, particularly, that the circumstances here are
materially indistinguishable from those in State v. Knox, 134 Or App 154, 894 P2d 1185
(1995), vac'd on other grounds 327 Or 97, 957 P2d 1209 (1998), on remand 160 Or App
668, 984 P2d 294 (1999).

In Knox, defendant was convicted of, inter alia, unlawful possession of
fireworks. 134 Or App at 156. On appeal, defendant contended that the warrantless
search that yielded the fireworks was not justified by officer safety concerns. The
undisputed facts were that Knox had been stopped for a traffic infraction, and the officer
who made the stop, Sharpton, knew that Knox had an extensive history of, and reputation
for, possessing weapons. In particular, Sharpton had stopped Knox on several occasions
and, the last two times, Knox had been carrying a knife and a handgun respectively.
Sharpton also knew that Knox had been an uncharged suspect in a homicide several
years earlier and, about a year earlier, Sharpton had received a state police teletype
warning that Knox had possessed firearms during a previous traffic stop. Id.

Sharpton, who believed that there was "an immediate danger to his safety,"
asked Knox, who had gotten out of his truck, if he was carrying any weapons. Id. Knox
replied that he had a handgun locked in his toolbox. Sharpton then performed a patdown
of Knox and found no weapons. Nevertheless, Sharpton continued to be concerned for
his safety because Knox might be able to reach in the truck through the pickup's open
window. Id. at 156-57. Consequently, Sharpton searched the truck's interior and found a
box in the front seat. He opened the box and, under some clothing, found two handguns
and a smaller box containing a large illegal firecracker. Id. at 157. Ultimately, Knox
was charged with unlawful possession of the guns and the firecracker; he was acquitted
on the firearms charge but convicted on the fireworks charge.

"That defendant had a reputation for carrying weapons by itself, is
insufficient to create a reasonable suspicion that defendant might use them
during the otherwise routine traffic stop. It is not necessarily unlawful to
carry weapons; indeed, the state concedes that Sharpton had no reason to
believe that defendant ever had unlawfully carried weapons.

"* * * * *

"Yet the state fails to explain how defendant's mere access to
weapons gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that defendant posed an
immediate threat of using them." Id. at 159-60 (emphasis in original).

Fact-matching in the context of officer-safety cases, as we have observed,
"can be a fool's errand." State v. Senn, 145 Or App 538, 545, 930 P2d 874 (1996).
Nevertheless, this case is materially distinguishable from Knox largely because it did not
involve a "routine traffic stop." Knox, 134 Or App at 159-60. By the time Watts
performed the patdown and took the gun from defendant, the encounter here had
escalated from a traffic stop to a felony drug arrest of one of defendant's passengers--who, in turn, told the officer that the drugs were defendant's and that defendant was
carrying a gun. Those circumstances--the actual arrest of defendant's passenger on
felony drug charges and the real possibility that defendant himself was implicated--greatly increased the potential that defendant would resort to force to interfere in the
passenger's arrest or to avoid his own arrest. The threat of injury was, in short, far more
real and "immediate" than in Knox. That immediacy was, precisely, the fulcrum of the
trial court's reasoning. See ___ Or App at ___ (slip op at 2-3) (quoting court's ruling).

2. Watts's computer check during the traffic stop did not reveal defendant's
felony record. After defendant's arrest, the police discovered that defendant had been
convicted on felony drug charges in California in 1979 and 1980.

3. The state also argued that the search that yielded the pistol was a valid
search incident to arrest for unlawful possession of a weapon under Portland City Code
section 14.32.010(c), which prohibits carrying loaded firearms on a public street or in a
public place. The trial court rejected that theory, concluding that, until Watts actually
retrieved the weapon, he did not have probable cause to believe--based merely on
Sanchez's statements--that the gun was loaded.

4. The state also argues, alternatively, that the search was a valid search
incident to arrest. Given our disposition, we need not address that argument.

We note, however, that, contrary to defendant's assertion, the state did not
need to raise that matter via a cross-assignment of error for us to address it. As we
explained in Groshong v. Mutual of Enumclaw Ins. Co., 143 Or App 450, 455-56, 923
P2d 1280 (1996), aff'd 329 Or 303, 985 P2d 1284 (1999):

"ORAP 5.57 requires a cross-assignment of error only if a respondent
challenges and seeks reversal or modification of a 'ruling of the trial
court.'" (Emphasis in original.)

Here, the operative ruling was the trial court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress.
The state does not seek reversal or modification of that ruling; rather, the state "urges us
to affirm the trial court based on reasoning the court rejected." Groshong, 143 Or App at
455-56 (emphasis in original). That "right for the wrong reason" argument is not
properly the subject of a cross-assignment of error. Id.; see also Oak Crest Const. Co. v.
Austin Mutual Ins. Co., 137 Or App 475, 478 n 2, 905 P2d 848 (1995), rev allowed 327
Or 620 (1998). To the extent that a footnoted observation in State v. Wheelon, 137 Or
App 63, 65 n 1, 903 P2d 399 (1995), suggests otherwise, Oak Crest and Groshong
subsequently and squarely disclaim that view. See also State v. Chatfield, 148 Or App
13, 16, 939 P2d 55 (1997) (reiterating necessity of cross-assigning error to discrete
ruling).

5. Knox was also charged with, and convicted of, illegal possession of
controlled substances based on the discovery of a pouch of cocaine in the patrol car in
which he had been transported after his arrest. The disposition of Knox's motion to
suppress with respect to that cocaine is the focus of the Supreme Court's opinion on
review, State v. Knox, 327 Or 97, 957 P2d 1209 (1998), and our opinion following
remand, State v. Knox, 160 Or App 668, 984 P2d 294 (1999).

6. Defendant asserts that Watts should have discounted Sanchez's statement as
self-serving and incredible. Although that may be true as to her statements about the
syringe, Sanchez had no reason to lie about the gun. Indeed, given her predicament, she
had every reason to bolster her credibility and tell the truth at least in that regard.